A made
in wartime predictable romantic pic about opposites
attracting, that's corny, filled with contrived
situations and forced comical situations. But it's
watchable hokum due to star appeal and good
chemistry between Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray.
It's about a well-known sophisticated celebrity
Manhattan lady magazine fashion photographer Katherine Grant (Claudette Colbert) falling for a
nobody macho sandhog Jim Ryan (Fred MacMurray), whom
she meets while on assignment to take photos of the
men digging the subway tunnel. Though the two don't
get along at first by the end it all works out, as she
ditches her wealthy but nerdy publisher boss (Paul
McGrath) fiance at the Mirror for Mr. Muscles.

It's
based on a story by Robert Lees and Frederic I. Rinaldo, and
is written by Claude
Binyon. Veteran director Mitchell Leisen
("Practically Yours"/"Lady in the Dark"/"Easy
Living"), the former art director,keeps things simplistic as
a Battle of the Sexes and class warfare comedy, as the
snobby Katherine must learn to let go of her superior
airs and convince the proud democratic sandhog that
she really cares for him and is not just after his bod
and thereby will marry for love.

Katherine's sister Hoppy (Ilka Chase) tries to be the
rational one in the family, wondering how anyone, no
less her smart sis, would not choose wealth over
brawn. Darlene (June Havoc) is the floozy ambitious showgirl
Ryan lusts after when confused about where he stands
with Katherine. That the lovesick photographer hires
the cocky Macho Man to be her assistant and her heavy
equipment mover because she feels guilty she got him
suspended from his job by publishing a photo of him
fighting with his fellow sandhogs that got him in
trouble with his bosses, is a plot device that keeps
the opposites traveling together in the same circles
and gives them a chance to get to know each other. To
convince the sandhog, nicknamed for his strength
"Superman," that her intentions are sincere,
Katherine's sophisticated panty-waist composer friend Roger (Richard Haydn) helps her navigate her
way in Ryan's blue-collar world.

The pleasant but superficial film might have
been good medicine for a war-weary country, but it has
not aged well. Though Colbert's dream sequence
favorably caught my attention, that has her rescued by
the boorish Superman, looking like MacMurray, showing she
secretly has the hots for him while at the same time
it cleverly pokes fun at
Dali's surrealism that was the rage of the art world
in the 1940s.